Originally Posted by
QRC3288
The term "flagship" has to be one of the most bizarre, meaningless, overused words in the mileage community!
Airlines fly the planes that make financial sense to each destination within the context of the broader network, fleet considerations, cargo, crew, distance, fleet mix, seasonality, and all sorts of other factors. The idea that certain planes are perhaps flown for prestige reasons (which I'm aware is not always what people mean by "flagship", this vague term that it is, but it often is related I think), is far more grand myth than reality. The airline industry is brutally tough as it stands without flying the wrong plane to the wrong market.
My bold. That's a pretty good reason right there!
I will add one other point: Virgin Atlantic no longer serves HKG, BA reduced capacity already (a388 + 77W/2 to either b772 +b789 or b788 + b789), and BA has further reduced capacity in the schedule to just one daily frequency.
Now compare to SFO and LAX, for example. United flies both routes 2x daily (SFO gets double daily 77W, LAX B789), and Cathay is soon returning to 3x daily for both markets. So each of LAX and SFO will be going from 3-4x daily to 5x daily. (And LAX and SFO aren't too far apart, travelers commonly fly into one and out of the other, meaning 10x dailies to HKG alone to the California West Coast). Meanwhile, LHR is going from 7x daily to 6x daily as BA cuts their second daily. To reiterate, capacity is actually decreasing in the LHR market! If I were a bean counter at CX that's be a route I'd take a hard look at for further capturing yield and maybe adding capacity.
It's just not crazy to think CX would be wise, if the numbers hold up, to press on with premium services to LHR and perhaps even add premium capacity considering the decline of the British airlines servicing HKG lately. And dare I say CX could do it with, drumroll, swapping some flights to 77J (the Aria product!). They could add capacity without worrying about LHR slots or returning to LGW, which is a more complex consideration than LHR given the lower yields.
As another point, not the biggest but one nonetheless, EK did a reasonable business sending passengers to London and from HKG as a connecting carrier and they're still not back to pre-Covid capacity in HKG. LH is still behind pre covid, and AF downsized their plane to a smaller a350 which regrettably doesn't carry F class. CX is in a great position flying to LHR and I can't fault them for trying to max it out here.
i don't think cathay would add more frequencies to london- given its added way more flights to Europe (MXP,BRU,MUC, BCN etc.) and other long haul destinations recently which directly competes with LHR due to how close it is from LHR. a lot of A359s instead of 5 B77W's pre pandemic probably describes that. london probably only gets a 77J first as its a "traditional" destination where all carriers pay a lot of attention to, and often send their new cabin products and planes to, like AI, EK, EY etc. and the 77J is pretty much a replacement for a 77K which is on CX255/250 so LHR seems like the safest and most logical bet to do it in.
HK'ers seem to travel less long haul and more regional especially japan and mainland china, from official data, due to a lot of recent events and the mess the world has become, so I think the main source of passengers in LHR comes from VFR and transit. CX serves many monopoly places or has way more frequency compared to other carriers to certain regional places (like taiwan, mainland china, japan, BKK etc.) that other carries who fly a lot to LHR don't serve nearly as much. and HKG has a geographical advantage and plenty of nearby big places, so I think that's a main reason LHR could still be so successful today even if the world has changed, added with the fact the British carriers have almost left and just benefits cathay more. i think BA goes back to a A35K to compete with a possible 77J next summer though. (right now BA sends a horrible B789)
foreign carriers (except for EY and TK recently) haven't increased capacity or added new long routes, and even downsizing routes, I guess because they couldnt really compete with cathays market share which is much higher than precovid. for example in HKG-LAX cathay had 89% load factor and UA was in the dangerous 50s in October. DFW and MUC, two places used to be served by foriegn carriers is now going to served by cathay. so the downsizing from foriegn carriers, while a pity, makes sense.